RETURN TO CUMANA. 109 
hundred inhabitants. The cocoa-tree is the prin- 
cipal object of cultivation. This palm thrives best 
in the neighbourhood of the sea, and like the sugar- 
cane, the plantain, the mammee-apple, and the al- 
ligator-pear, may be watered either with fresh or 
salt water. In other parts of America it is generally 
nourished around farm-houses ; but along the Gulf 
of Cariaco it forms real plantations, and at Cumana 
they talk of a hacienda de coco, as they do of a ha- 
cienda de canna, or de cacao. In moist and fertile 
ground it begins to bear abundantly the fourth 
year ; but in dry soils it does not produce fruit un- 
til the tenth. Its duration does not generally ex- 
ceed ninety or a hundred years ; at which period its 
mean height is about eighty feet. Throughout this 
coast a cocoa-tree supplies annually about a hundred 
nuts, which yield eight flascos of oil. ‘The flasco is 
sold for about sixteenpence. A great quantity is 
made at Cumana, and Humboldt frequently wit- 
nessed the arrival there of canoes containing 3000 
nuts. The oil, which is clear and destitute of smell, 
is well adapted for burning. 
After sunset they left the farm of Pericautral, 
and at three in the morning reached the mouth of 
the Manzanares, after passing a very indifferent 
night in a narrow and deeply-laden canoe. Hayv- 
ing been for several weeks accustomed to mountain 
scenery, gloomy forests, and rainy weather, they 
were struck by the bareness of the soil, the clearness 
of the sky, and the mass of reflected light by which 
the neighbourhood of Cumana is characterized. At 
sunrise they saw the zamuro vultures (Vultur 
aura) perched on the cocoa-trees in large flocks. 
These birds go to roost long before night, and do 
